First timers

Intro

For the last 2.5 years Maryna and I are living the digital nomad lifestyle. We are traveling around the world while working as designer and developer. We have visited handful of countries during this period and I noticed one interesting thing: while travelling we are always trying something new and doing something that we never did before. Here is my list of "first-timers".

Sailing

In July, 2012 in Croatia we tried sailing for the first time in our lifes. It was on the small island in the Kornati National Park. Actually, it was our first time ever living on the island. We spent there 3 days learning how to sail from the locals.

New Wonder of the world

The first time we saw one of the New 7 Wonders of the World was in Rio de Janeiro. It was in December 2012. It was our first time in the Southern Hemisphere. We obviously visited Cristo Redentor statue.

Pyramid

Our first pyramid happened to be not in Egypt, but in Mexico. Teotihuacan is a really impressive site very close to Mexico City. We were lucky enough to see Chichen Itza later, but Teotihuacan remains the most beautiful construction I ever saw. We were there in January 2013.

Scuba diving and other things

We lived in Playa del Carmen for the 3 months during 2013. It is beautiful small town south from the Cancun on the Caribbean sea.

We had a chance to do a lot of things there for the first time. Like scuba diving

Volcano

We are from the flatlands of Ukraine, so visiting active volcano in Guatemala was unforgettable. We attended Pacaya volcano, which is located very close to the Guatemala City. You can see micro eruptions every 10 minutes. We've stayed in Guatemala for 5 weeks in the May, 2013.

Skyscraper

Panama City was a huge surprise for me. I didn't know anything about the city and the country beside the canal. We were extremely surprised to see the skyline of the city while landing for stopover there. Later, when we were back for a trip there, we rented a room on the top (40th) floor of skyscraper. It was our first stay ever in skyscraper actually. August 2013.

Equator

Ecuador is one of the most beautiful countries for us. We lived in Quito and were hiking at the altitude of 4000 meters. Again it's really high comparing to Ukrainian flatlands. We took a chance to take few photos on equator line, while visiting Mitad del Mundo - Middle of the World. August 2013.

Kayaking

We tried kayaking for the first time ever while travelling in Macedonia. Canyon Matka is just outside of Skopje and the nature is astonishing. April, 2014.

Other

There were a lot of other things that happened to us for the first time somewhere outside of our home country.

E.x. first time we rent a car was in Nicaragua, first time we played tennis was in Montenegro, our first robbery happened in Rio de Janeiro, first visit to Asia was in January 2014 when we arrived to Instanbul. First international star concert was in Buenos Aires, when we visited Alicia Keys show.

Conclusion

After being a digital nomad for the past 2.5 years I must say that I never regret that decision. It's eye-opening, it's inspiring, it's actually not expensive, it's not difficult but it is also not for everyone. I'm going to write about it in the next few upcoming blog posts. The idea was to explore just one side of such lifestyle in this post. Traveling allowed me to do and try a lot of new things in a very short period of time.